My Secret Life as a Spaghetti Coder
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For the last 8 weeks or so, I've been out of the habit of getting up from my office chair regularly. I made a comment about it on twitter and @jwo, thought it was important enough to take a break too.



Sitting a lot is bad for your health (even if you exercise), and as a programmer, I sit a lot. I haven't ever really felt a problem from it until recently, when I got out of the habit of taking regular breaks. In my case that was leading to back pain, mental frustration, and not getting enough water. So yesterday I started using Dejal Timeout as a way to force myself to get up, stretch, and walk around a bit. (It fades in, dims your screen, and makes it hard to work when it's time for a break).

The results? 5000 more steps for the day (~50% increase), much more water, no back pain this morning, and yesterday I got done WAY more than I have in the past two months. I am not thinking those outstanding results will continue forever (and I realize my story doesn't suffice for proving causality), but I expect I'll remain better off than before. I set it to take a 5 minute break after every 55 minutes.

Final note: You can configure that software to not show the "skip this break" button. I recommend this. If you make it easy to skip, I think you'll end up skipping. I did keep the postpone buttons though, and used them a couple of times.

What tips do you have to help manage and maintain your health?

Hey! Why don't you make your life easier and subscribe to the full post or short blurb RSS feed? I'm so confident you'll love my smelly pasta plate wisdom that I'm offering a no-strings-attached, lifetime money back guarantee!


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